Why Do Biofuels Seem to Be Stalled?

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September 28, 2015

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(Deutsche Welle) On the heels of the VW scandal, many are asking why eco-friendly transport seems to be stalled. Biofuels that don’t compete with food production may indeed play an important future role, says Nicholas Wagner of IRENA.

Deutsche Welle: The Paris climate conference will be happening in early December of this year. What role can biofuels play in the Paris climate deal?

Nicholas Wagner: If you look at sustainability in the transport sector, there are several drivers: reducing greenhouse gas emissions, energy diversification, and technology development.

We’ve done analyses of the potential emissions mitigation impact of renewable technologies in transport, and biofuels can help. It depends on the country and the particular energy mix, and on how you quantify some of the life cycle aspects of biofuels.

The transport sector contributes around a third of total global energy demand, and we’ve estimated that biofuels could potentially make an impact of up to 10 or 15 percent of transport-sector emissions reductions.

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The biofuels sector doesn’t have a positive image. In Europe, there has been debate about sustainability, especially regarding the impact that the resources required to grow crops to make biofuels have on biodiversity and food security. What’s the state of debate on these issues now?

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Then there’s the whole advanced biofuels side, which is a very technology-driven, process-driven industry that’s using really interesting new production technologies to produce biofuels, in a sustainable way, from non-food feedstocks.

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It’s not a question of either/or in the case of electric mobility or biofuels or biogas in transport. The right approach is “all of the above.”

What are the biggest stumbling blocks in the way of a really significant share for biofuels in the transport sector?

The challenge is in developing economies of scale – scaling up the demonstration plants to commercial production, which will drive down costs. READ MORE

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